Austria
(German language: Österreich, Croatian: Austrija,
Hungarian: Ausztria, Slovenian: Avstrija)
is a landlocked country in central Europe. It borders
Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia
and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the
south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west.
Its capital is the city of Vienna.

Austria
is a parliamentary representative democracy consisting
of nine federal states and is one of six European
countries that have declared permanent neutrality.
Austria is a member of the United
Nations (since 1955) and the European Union (since
1995). For the first half of 2006, Austria again held
the seat of the Presidency of the EU.

Origin
and history of the name

The
German name Österreich can be translated into
English as the "eastern realm", which is
derived from the Old German Ostarrîchi. Reich
can also mean "empire", and this connotation
is the one that is understood in the context of the
Austrian/Austro-Hungarian Empire, Holy Roman Empire,
although not in the context of the modern Republic of Österreich.
The term probably originates in a vernacular translation
of the Medieval Latin name for the region: Marchia
orientalis, which translates as "eastern
borderland", as it was situated at the eastern edge
of the Holy Roman Empire, that was also mirrored in the
name Ostmark applied after Anschluss to
Germany.

The
current official designation is the Republic of
Austria (Republik Österreich). It was
originally known after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire from 1918 as the Republic of German-Austria
(Republik Deutsch-Österreich), but the state was
forced to change its name to "Republic of
Austria" in 1919 peace Treaty of Saint-Germain. The
name was changed again during the Austro-fascist regime
(1934-1938), into Federal State of Austria (Bundesstaat
Österreich), but restored after regaining
independence and the birth of the Second Austrian
Republic (1955-present).

During the monarchy, Austria was known as the Austrian
Empire (Kaisertum Österreich), however no
official designation existed since the empire was
strongly multiethnic. After the Ausgleich with Hungary
in 1867, the empire became known as Austria-Hungary
in reflection of the dual monarchy character. Some
historians argue that the term The Kingdoms and Lands
Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the
Crown of St. Stephen (Die im Reichsrat
vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der
heiligen ungarischen Stephanskrone) was the correct
official name for Austria-Hungary.